In A Savage Land
by Nenia
Summary: You cannot cut your roots completely. They can still nourish or poison you, even after years and across great distances. – Sequel to “Of Sinking or Swimming”, the years after leaving Castle Rock, Gordie’s POV, Chris and Gordie all the way, mild slash


**Disclaimer**: It all belongs to the genius of Stephen King. Apart from the Paladin song which belongs to someone else who is also not me.  
**Author's Note**: This turned out to be closer to the novella "The Body", but still understandable if you only know the movie "Stand By Me". Just keep in mind that there are some small differences between movie and book. "Apples and oranges" as Mr. King once put it so nicely.  
**Summary**: _The past has the habit of following you, and no matter what you do, you cannot cut your roots completely. They can still nourish or poison you, even after years and across great distances. _– Sequel to "Of Sinking or Swimming", Gordie's POV

* * *

**In A Savage Land**

_Have gun will travel, reads the card of a man  
A knight without armor in a savage land  
His fast gun hire, heeds the calling wind  
A soldier of fortune, is a man called Paladin _

Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam  
Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home

**I  
**

It was about a year after we left Castle Rock when the past caught up with us.

He stood there, in his leather jacket, cigarette stump between his fingers, a worn out expression on his pale features. It had been a year since I last saw him. Half a life-time, it seemed. Like a ghost from a former life.  
He didn't talk much. I think he couldn't really believe it himself or refused to let it sink in completely. The four of us and the trip down the tracks, that had always been sacred, sealed and protected inside our minds, and even though we had drifted apart, that had been a link, an untouchable truth, maybe one of the many anchors of our souls that still connected us.  
He told me with long pauses and like he had to get every word from somewhere he'd like to have left it for good. There had been a fire. A large drunken party. Someone had fallen asleep with a cigarette still burning in their hand. It had cost the life of five people.  
Vernon Tessio was dead. He had not turned twenty and Vern was dead.  
I felt like I had been dropped into ice-cold water, going numb within seconds.  
You think after having lost a brother and a father and after having seen a dead kid when you were twelve, you should be used to this kind of news.  
Let me tell you this: you never get used to it.  
After he left, I kept wondering if he had really been there. It seemed unlikely, that ghost from the past, sitting on a chair in my dorm room in Orono, talking about the death of a friend…  
The only proof that it had not been a dream was a piece of paper with a date and a time, written in Teddy's shaky handwriting.

A week later, I stepped off the train at Castle Rock station. The wind blew dust and dirt around my shoes while I made my way to the house I grew up in.  
My mom had not found it in her to sell it after I moved away. She said it was her only connection to dad and Denny, the only touchable memory she had of happier times. To me, the house would always be a reminder of death. I guess everyone deals with their grief in their own way.  
She must have waited behind the window for she opened the door before I had crossed the front lawn. We hugged on the porch for a long time. Her hand on the back of my head brought up so many childhood memories, I almost felt like crying. Her hair was turning grey and there were crow's feet around her eyes, but the flowery dress, the woollen jacket, that faint smell of lavender soap … that was so … home, I felt like a little boy again. Like it had been before Denny died and everything turned darker.  
We sat in the kitchen and talked for a long time. When I went to my room, the sun was deep in the sky.

A knock on my door brought me out of a light doze.  
As I opened the door, I briefly wondered how Teddy had managed to find him and pass the bad news. It wasn't easy to track Chris Chambers down. He had moved a couple of times since he went to Portland, from dorm to dorm, from flat to flat, never staying too long in one place. In a way, he had always been on the run, even as a kid, only that he could not really get away when we still lived in Castle Rock. Wherever he went, his bad reputation had followed him, into every new class, with every new teacher. Now, he enjoyed not being recognized, enjoyed being the new guy who just moved in and who nobody knew much about. I think even his family didn't quite know where he was living at the moment.  
He leaned on the window frame, looking outside at the darkening sky, while I stretched out on my bed again.  
He didn't say anything, just took out his pack of cigarettes and offered it to me. I took one, absentmindedly turning it between my fingers while he opened the window. The chilly air hit my arms and made me shiver slightly.  
We smoked in silence. Like we had done when my brother died and when my father died. That was what Chris did: never trying to find words to express consolation. Accepting the fact that there simply are no words for such occasions.  
I watched him sitting in the open window frame. The hands holding the cigarette. The shoulders that always looked a little stiff as if he was in constant defence mode. He probably had to be while being in one town with his brother and father.  
The familiar face, so closed up all the time, apart from very rare occasions. When we were kids, he hid behind a quick smile and a joke. I don't think many people looked close enough to see the shadow of worries behind his eyes.  
I had visited him once in Portland. He lived in a rat hole then and worked night shifts at a 'Drive In' but his smile was back. A real smile, not the one he used to hide behind. He looked happier than he ever had in Castle Rock.  
"Have you been to your folk's yet?" I asked quietly.  
He flicked the ashes of his cigarette out of the window and looked down at his knees drawn up against the window frame.  
"I came here first."  
I rose onto my elbows. "Heard anything?"  
He looked out the window. "Called ahead. Mom said, dad would be at the bar tonight."  
"Wanna stay here?"  
The edges of his mouth twitched into a smile, probably remembering the offer from countless occasions in the past. "Thanks, man, but my mom made me promise to at least stop by today. Should be going soon."  
"Want me to walk you there? Bit of fresh air would do me good."  
He hesitated for a second, then nodded.  
I threw the remains of my cigarette out the window, got my jacket and waited for him to get into motion. He did reluctantly.

We walked the streets of Castle Rock, side by side, like we had never been away. Small towns seem to lead an existence of their own, one that doesn't follow the rules of time of the outside world.  
The last time we had been out on these streets at night together was after our prom. After we had taken our dates home and handed them back to their over-protective parents, we had strolled through the quiet town. Not breaking the silence with many words. We had known that this was goodbye. Memories had flooded both our minds and when one of us chuckled at the thought of a spectacular prank we had committed, we shared a short "Do you remember …?" before falling back into relaxed silence.  
A mile outside of town, we had sat down in a field and watched the stars.  
"Do you remember Ray Brower?" never passed our lips. Of course we remembered. And we always would. The summer that marked the end of our childhood, the day we had seen the dead body of a kid our age, his unseeing eyes, his pale face in the undergrowth.

A few days later, we had taken the train out of Castle Rock, to separate cities. We had both been accepted to the University of Maine, but he went to Portland campus, while I headed for Orono.  
I had woken from nightmares almost every night for several weeks. We talked on the phone every other week, but it took me some time to get used to not being able to keep an eye on him, to check if he was okay.  
But whenever we talked on the phone, he sounded so happy I managed to not worry for a few days. We talked about our College courses, our professors, other students, jobs… but not so much about Castle Rock.

We reached the corner where we had parted every day on our way home. He looked down the street towards the house of his family. Sometimes, the words "I don't wanna go home" had been written all over his face when we had said goodbye for the day. And I always wished I could say "You don't have to." but we were children then. He had not been welcome in my parents' house as long as my father lived. And it would have made things worse for his mother and younger siblings, to have to deal with a drunken husband and father without Chris taking the blows to defend them.  
We stopped in front of the Chambers' house. It lay quiet in the night, just a few lights on behind the windows.  
Most of the time, Chris didn't let show how much it got to him. But now he stood there on the pavement, looking windswept and beaten as if all the memories of past hidings were coming back and threatened to choke him.  
I put a hand on his shoulder. "See you later?"  
He gave me a forced smile. "Yeah, if my mom ever lets go of me again." Then he started walking up to the porch.  
I watched him walk away and couldn't help thinking that he looked smaller in this town than he actually was.

He showed up only an hour later. The clicking sound of pebbles against my window was so familiar that I half-expected to see his twelve year old self when I looked out.  
He climbed up the tree as if he really was twelve again, swung his legs through the window and landed safely on his feet.  
"How was it?" I asked, carefully scanning his face and arms for injuries.  
"Dad wasn't home yet."  
"And your family?"  
"Mom has sent the others to sleep-over at some friends'."  
"And what about her?"  
Chris shook his head, looking so defeated I wanted nothing more than to say or do something helpful, but my mind came up with nothing appropriate.  
"It was strange to see Teddy again." he said.  
It took me a second to pick up on the subject change. "Yeah. I think it really got to him."  
Chris shrugged and sat down on my bed. "I guess it's bound to do so. Just sucks … losing your best friend to a fire… Man!" He shook his head.  
I sat down next to him and watched him from the side.  
"Falling asleep with your cigarette still burning… sounds so much like Vern. He really wasn't the brightest kid in town, was he?" He made a pause. "You know … I really liked him."  
"Yeah, me too." I said quietly.  
"Think he ever found out about his pennies?"  
The thought of the pennies made me smile. I shook my head.  
A comfortable silence settled over us, both going through memories of the time when the four of us had been a gang.  
We stretched out on my bed and I started to drift off to sleep, lulled by the familiar warmth next to me that I had missed for a long time.  
"Gordie?" Chris asked softly.  
"Hm?"  
"Promise you won't fall asleep while smoking? Ever?"  
"Hmhm."  
"Good."

The funeral was small and simple. The priest said a few words, the coffin was lowered into the grave, then everyone dropped a shovel of earth down on it and expressed their condolences to the family.  
Teddy was there, wearing what was probably his finest suit. His thick glasses couldn't hide the fact that he was blinking away tears.  
When it was his turn to stand at the grave and say his last goodbye, he lifted his hand and dropped something else. Something that made a metallic "clink" when it hit the coffin's surface.  
I made a fist around the penny in my pocket.

After the ceremony, Teddy came over to us, his shoulders slumped and his feet barely lifting while he walked. The wind ruffled his hair and revealed the hearing aid that had been his companion since childhood.  
"Thanks for coming, guys. I know Vern would have appreciated it."  
He turned and looked at the slowly scattering guests. The Tessios were still standing at the open grave, incapable of letting go just yet.  
"He never got why we didn't last."  
I turned to him, frowning.  
Teddy continued. "The four of us, I mean. He thought we'd last forever. You know, he never was the brightest kid of Castle Rock."  
"What are you talking about, man?" asked Chris.  
Teddy turned to him with an unreadable expression. "You got out of here. Lucky Chambers and Smart-Ass Lachance."'  
Without a further word, he walked away.  
My mouth suddenly felt very dry.

That night I jerked awake from an all too vivid dream featuring Vern, engulfed in flames, smoking a cigarette like nothing was wrong, and Teddy asking me why I had let the two of them drown. I pressed my hands to my face, trying to shut out the images.  
I got up, careful not to wake Chris, and opened the window, breathing the fresh air to wash away the strange feeling in my stomach. Too awake to go back to sleep, I sat in my open window for a while, letting my thoughts drift through the night.  
Being here always made me feel closer to my childhood. All those summers under starry skies, a bottle of coke in hand, fooling around with my friends. Fooling around with Chris…  
I watched him sleep on my bed, one arm under his head, one across his stomach. Tomorrow, we'd go back to our separate cities, to our separate lives. We would let go again.  
Yes, I made my choice. And I would not regret it in a thousand years.  
Everything would have been perfect if there had not been the image of Teddy and Vern in my head, looking sadly at me while they silently slipped under water and out of sight.  
Teddy's words had uncovered the seed of doubt in my mind and now that it was revealed, it was growing. The doubt if I really had had to choose. If it had not been possible to save all of them.  
Reason reminded me how much of an effort it had been to get Chris through the College courses. Could I have done the same for Teddy and Vern? Reason said no. But it wasn't able to shut out the nagging feeling of guilt that was slowly building.

**II**

In 1967, I saved up enough money to buy an old Buick and drove down to Portland for Chris' birthday.  
You should have seen his face when he walked out of the lecture hall and saw me standing there. Like Christmas was a few months early.  
We went out with a few of his friends, having a few beers at a bar and playing pool.  
Chris never touched beer when he was a kid, even when we hawked a few bottles from one kid's old man. He ignored the jokes and being called a pussy. And he still did while he took a sip from his coke, waiting for his turn at the pool table.  
He drove on the way back. The four bottles I had emptied were enough to leave me in a warm and fuzzy state I called slightly tipsy and he called something else. He led the way down the stairs to the pisshole someone had rented him as a flat, one hand always ready to steady me when I swooned, making me lean on the wall while he got out the keys and opened the door.  
My head hit a naked light bulb that was hanging from the ceiling and made it swing wildly, which I found incredibly fascinating at the time. Chris had to guide me to his bed like a child, making me sit down and crouching before me to take off my shoes.  
Breaking through the alcohol-induced haze, a déjà vu hit me.  
"This happened before," I said, careful to not slur the words.  
"What?"  
"Only with places reversed."  
He pulled off my second shoe and pulled back the blanket for me.  
"You should sleep, Gordie."  
I reached out and touched his shoulder. "Your arm was dislodged."  
He took my hand and held it for a second, smiling. "You took care of me and I'm returning the favour. Sleep well."  
He turned to go for the couch as his bed didn't have room for two, but stopped when I didn't let go of his hand.  
"What is it, Gordie?"  
"No one's called me Gordie in years. Not even mom. Only you."  
He smiled and ruffled my hair, slung an arm around my head and half-wrestled me down onto the bed. "Sleep now, you drunk moron!"  
I started missing the warmth of his body the instant he drew back. From beneath heavy lids, I watched him walk around his flat before he settled down on the couch.  
"Chris?"  
"Hm?"  
"Happy Birthday."

In 1968, I pointed a gun at a living person to save my best friend.

Eyeball joined his older brother in prison for stabbing a guy in a bar fight. The night the news came out, Chris showed up out of the blue in front of my door, looking like a beaten dog.  
The next morning, we went to Castle Rock. Chris feared his mom was losing it and his dad was making it worse than ever. I saw the thoughts of his father flutter over his face in light shades of green, manifesting themselves in physical sickness.  
I stopped the car in front of the Chambers' house.  
"Want me to come with you?"  
Chris shook his head. "It's okay, really. Just wanna check on them. See you later at your place."  
I tried to tell myself that he was older now, that he could handle this now.  
I watched him walk towards the house and vanish behind the door before I started the engine and drove to my mom's house.

Three hours I managed to wait before I got nervous and went to check on Chris. The house looked quiet but I decided to wait for him nonetheless.  
My mind came up with a lot of explanations for his long stay at his parents' place. He had always been good at putting things back together when they fell apart. Especially people.  
None of the explanations seemed to suffice. My heart kept beating hard and slowly in my chest that felt all too tight for comfort.

When I heard something smash, I was out of the car, up the porch and through the front door before I could stop to think.  
Mr. Chambers was standing in the kitchen, bent over his son, kicking and beating the living crap out of him, screaming at the top of his lungs if Chris thought he was something better, that he'd beat the College attitude out of him, that they should have sent Chris to jail, not his brothers…  
The words bore themselves into my mind. Everything that had ever caused Chris pain seemed to ball up and concentrate in that one person beating him now.  
I could never remember later on how I managed to find the gun. It cannot have taken me more than a minute to get it, load it and be back in the kitchen, all the time hearing the verbal humiliations that were raining down on Chris alongside the blows.  
I only remember standing there, screaming at Mr. Chambers to stop, though he would not until I gave a warning shot into the wall.  
The silence that followed was deafening.  
"Move away from him."  
Either the bullet or my suddenly calm voice must have been very convincing, for Mr. Chambers backed away, his face still contorted in anger.  
Then I was dragging Chris to the car. I went back for his mother and sisters who had locked themselves in a room upstairs. Mrs. Chambers took her husband's car, the girls silently crying in the backseat.  
I waited until they were gone before getting into the driver's seat and turning the key.  
I tried to talk to Chris on the way to the hospital but didn't get much out of him. He mostly stared back at me like he didn't know me which scared the shit out of me.  
When I stopped in front of the ER entrance, he buried his bruised face in his hands and didn't move until the paramedics almost lifted him out of the seat and wheeled him off.  
I parked the car, then stood there, feeling lost for a second. A mother with her child walked past me and quickened her step, while the little boy was openly staring at me. It took me a moment to realize that my shirt was splattered with Chris' blood. A wave of nausea hit me and I went in search for the men's room.

After an hour of not being able to decide between senseless pacing and sitting on a hard plastic chair, I was searched out by one of the nurses.  
"Mr. Lachance, Sir? Some men from the police would like to talk to you."

Over a cup of watery coffee from the vending machine, they took my statement. Routine, they said. The neighbour had heard screaming and a gunshot and called the police.  
I briefly wondered if Mr. Chambers would press charges. Then I decided that I really did not care at the moment.  
They asked my name, my address, what had happened … then suddenly, it was over.  
"We need you to come down to the station within the next few days to sign your statement."  
I nodded, shook hands and sank back into the plastic chair, closing my eyes.

They kept Chris in over night for further observation. He had a concussion, two broken ribs and countless bruises all over him.  
They let me see him briefly, telling me to keep it short as he was on a dose of painkillers that would make him fall asleep any second.  
I didn't manage more than a "Hey." and squeezing his hand.  
His eyes were glazed over from the drugs, he just looked at me and there was something so incredibly sad in his gaze, I couldn't say another word. Half a minute later, he was out.

They let me take him home the next day after the police had interviewed him.  
He didn't say a word when he slowly made his way to the car and got in, not even when we left Castle Rock behind and headed for Portland. He just stared out of the window at the landscape passing by.  
I tried talking to him a few times without success.  
Chris had always been the one to guide and make decisions, self-assured and reliable. It was creeping me out to see him like this. Not questioning what was going on, not really reacting to his surroundings. I think I could have driven us down to Mexico and he wouldn't have questioned it.  
He let me help him out of the car and down the stairs to his flat. He didn't protest when I took off his jacket and made him sit on the bed. When I pulled off his shoes, I looked up at his face, hoping to see some reaction, but his expression was blank. Trying to tell myself that his silence was probably due to the painkillers and nothing to worry about, I got him a glass of water from the kitchenette. He took his pills and closed his eyes.

During the night, I woke up from retching noises coming from the bathroom. I left the couch and knocked on the bathroom door. When I didn't get an answer, I entered.  
Chris was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall next to the toilet. I tried to ignore the pungent smell, opened the small window that was high up in the wall, then wetted a towel in the sink and handed it to Chris.  
He was still shaking from the sickness, but he took the towel and pressed it to his face.  
I leaned against the wall and slid down until I sat next to him.  
"It's just the concussion. Last time was the same."  
It was muffled by the towel, but it were the first words he had spoken to me since the incident.  
The silence stretched out again. I took a breath.  
"Are you mad at me?"  
He let the towel sink and looked at me. "Am I mad at you?" His voice broke a little at the last two words. "You point a gun at a man, after invading his home, even fire a shot. If my father decides to press charges, you'll need a damn good lawyer. Damn, Gordie, we're not twelve anymore, this wasn't a game!" He didn't sound angry, just very tired. Maybe it would have been easier if he had been mad at me because then I wouldn't have felt bad for my own rage.  
"No, we are not twelve anymore. For once I was not standing by and watching you being the punching bag for your abusive father."  
"The courts don't like setting foot in family affairs. It won't be about abuse or defence or whatever you think this was about, it will be about you, the gun and the bullet in the wall."  
"It was a warning shot."  
"Oh yeah? And how do you plan to prove that?"  
"You were there."  
"God, Gordie, I was barely aware you were even there. For all I know, the two of you could have been dancing around the room."  
"So? It would be his word against mine. The word of a known alcoholic who abuses his wife and children against the word of a student without a single black mark on his record. Who do you think a jury would believe?" I nudged him very gently with my shoulder. "Who of us was studying law again?"  
I knew I had gotten through to him. Whatever irrational thoughts had led him to believe that he had caused the mess I was in – if I was really in it – I must have cracked them. But it didn't make him look happier.  
He drew up his legs and wrapped his arms around himself protectively.  
"You always get into trouble because of me."  
I put an arm around his shoulders. "And has that ever stopped me?"  
"No. That's what worries me."

The concussion was gone after two weeks, his ribs and the bruises took longer. I stuck around as long as my studies would allow it. When I set off back to Orono, Chris walked me to the car and kept standing on the sidewalk when I drove away. In the rear view mirror, he got smaller and smaller until I had to turn a corner.

**III**

The day Chris and I met had been in early spring. I remember the mud on his shoes as he walked up to pull a kid off me that was taller and stronger and was trying to squeeze the air out of me. The bully went sailing to the floor a few feet away, then a hand appeared in my line of view.  
I blinked.  
"You wanna stay down there?"  
I blinked again, then pulled myself together, took the offered hand and was brought back to my feet.  
Being faced with two opponents, one of them not as scrawny as he usually liked his victims, the bully walked away. But not without insulting us and our mothers first.  
I got one of Chris' trademark half-smiles. The first of a lot more.

I watched Chris walk into class covered in bruises countless times. And he never stopped smiling at me, he never let it bring him down, but how I wished I had been tall and strong enough to pull his father off him like he had pulled the bully off me. All I had been able to do was help him to get out of his father's reach. It had taken a lot of time and effort. And apparently, it had not been enough.  
I wish I could say I regret doing something as horrible as threatening someone's life. But truth is, when I pointed the gun at Chris' father, it felt like I should have done that a long time ago. It caused a lot of trouble and I had to attend a hearing to explain myself, but as I had predicted, the judge dismissed the case. The ER staff at the hospital gave a written report on the injuries Chris sported when I brought him in. The neighbour who had called the police made a statement on the way Mr. Chambers seemed to run his family.

Chris tried to persuade his mother to file divorce and move to Portland with him. He would have given up his studies to work and provide for the family.  
She didn't leave her husband. I think she knew she would have ruined her only decent son's life if she took his offer. Or maybe the official reason she gave Chris - that she still loved his father - was true. Strange, how much you are willing to endure for love, isn't it?

When I walked out of the hearing, Chris was waiting for me, leaning against the side of my Buick.  
"You okay?" he asked when I walked up to him.  
"Yeah, I'm okay."  
Chris' smile suddenly froze and I turned to look.  
Mr. Chambers and his wife came down the steps of the courthouse. He looked red in the face and she was trying to calm him.  
He spotted us. "You!"  
He advanced on me and before I knew what was happening, Chris had stepped in front of me.  
"Dad, stop! Now!"  
"Threatening me in my own house! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU LITTLE FAG!!" he was screaming at me now.  
"Please, Bill!" Mrs. Chambers was almost crying, trying to pull him away from us.  
"Oh, I know what you are! Tryin' to turn my son into a goddamn fag!!" Spit flew from his mouth.  
"Dad, if you don't walk away now, I'll go right in and file a case against you." Chris voice was so calm there was no doubt he was dead serious.  
His father took several deep breaths but in the end, he obviously figured it wouldn't be wise to beat up his son in front of the courthouse. Mrs. Chambers finally managed to pull him away and to their car.  
Only when they were gone did Chris turn to me. I opened the car door for him, then got into the driver's seat next to him. It was then that I noticed that he was shaking.  
I reached out and took his hand to squeeze it.

It had been 'sink or swim' for so many years. I thought we had managed to reach the shore when we got out of Castle Rock but only to walk out into a savage land, knights without armour, without any means to defend ourselves except each other.  
The past has the habit of following you, and no matter what you do, you cannot cut your roots completely. They can still nourish or poison you, even after years and across great distances.  
It's like you never really stop swimming all your life. You can drown any second, be pulled under water by people taking advantage of you or even people who only want your best. On the way, you might see your friends drown and have to decide to swim on or sink with them, to try to save them or let them drown. You might regret your choices later on but it's those decisions that rule your life. All you can hope for is someone who risks drowning to pull you back up when all your strength leaves you and you are about to sink.

He looked up and managed a smile. "I'm sorry."  
"Whatever for?"  
He made a sound as if he wanted to laugh but didn't have the strength to. "You're unbelievable, man!"  
"I'm trying to be."  
Chris shook his head. "Gordie?"  
"Yeah?"  
And then he did something that felt just like the moment you solve a complicated math problem and can underline the result. Or like stepping out of a crowded place and being able to breathe again. Or like standing out in the rain and getting soaking wet but not being able to stop laughing because you suddenly realize you haven't felt so alive in years. And maybe all of them and none of them.

The End

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A/N: If you liked this, please take a moment to review. For an additional note on this story, please check my profile. 


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